


Tired of Reaching (maybe it's closer than you think)

by MK_Yujji



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Mentions of past abuse, naked angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4702760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/pseuds/MK_Yujji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant knows he's not exactly normal, but he's pretty sure this isn't how relationships are supposed to start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tired of Reaching (maybe it's closer than you think)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [nostarielstuff's](http://nostarielstuff.tumblr.com) prompt over on tumblr - "Is there a reason that you're naked in my bed?"
> 
> I don't think this is quite what she was expecting, but I hope it's still okay. 
> 
> Takes place post-Lorelei, but pre-HYDRA reveal. Grant Ward is _not_ HYDRA in this. The canon abuse that Ward is shown to have suffered still happened, just without the HDYRA twist.

It's late when Grant finally trudges back up the ramp to the Bus. Everything is quiet in a way that it only gets late at night when they've settled somewhere so that everyone can get some sleep. Even the lab is dark and silent, the wonder kid scientists apparently turned in for the night.

May has watch, but she doesn't really acknowledge him as he slips by her.

That's fine. He doesn't acknowledge her, either.

They've both been called into Coulson's office and been scolded about their inability to move past their interpersonal issues, but the best they've been able to promise him is that they'll stop sniping and bickering constantly. Mutual cold shoulders isn't the worst compromise they could have settled into considering just how spectacularly their not-relationship had imploded.

Sighing, Grant rolls his shoulders and winces when the muscles in his back protest.

It's been a long, hard solo mission and he knows it was only barely successful even though it would have been a cakewalk just a year ago. This team thing is making him too soft, too used to having back up. It's going to get him killed if he isn't careful.

Between that and the mess with May, he's really wishing that he'd made a better case against getting press-ganged onto Coulson's team.

He isn't cut out for teamwork.

He plods through the dark, footsteps heavier than he'd normally allow, but he's just so _tired_. He's tired of reaching out for things that he can't have. He's tired of trying to be what everyone else wants him to be. He's tired of the way everyone has looked at him since the mission with the Asgardians.

He's tired of having to look in the mirror and see all of his failures staring back at him.

Five years ago he'd have shot Lorelei before she got within ten feet of him.

Maybe it's time to call Fury and admit that he's done. Washed up. Thirty two isn't old by real world standards, but SHIELD has a way of chewing agents up and spitting them out. Grant doesn't want to be the agent who stays past his shelf-life and gets other agents - more agents - killed.

He lets himself into his room and pauses there at the door, blinking in surprise at the figure wrapped up in his sheets. 

They stare at each other for a long minute, Grant's bewilderment growing as no explanation or obvious reason presents itself. 

When it becomes obvious that Fitz isn't going to actually say anything, Grant rubs his hands over his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Is there a reason that you're naked in my bed? Or am I hallucinating?"

He pauses and puts the back of his hand over his forehead. He hadn't thought the weapons dealer he'd gone in to deal with had actually managed to hurt him, but maybe there'd been some kind of bio-chemical weapon he hadn't noticed.

"What?" Fitz loses the uncomfortable look he'd had before and frowns, leaning forward. The sheet drops lower, barely covering his hips. It's… kind of distracting. "Why would you be hallucinating? You didn't report any injuries when you called Coulson to say you were on your way back."

"No, I…" Sighing, Grant drops his bag on the floor. He only hesitates for a second before sitting on the corner of his bed. "I'm just really unsure what's going on here."

Fitz crosses his arms over his chest and leans back again, looking both embarrassed and determined. It's not an uncommon look for him, even if it's not a setting that Grant ever expected to see it in. "I'd think it should be obvious, yeah?"

There've been exactly two people naked in his bed in the last few years that weren't there because he was seducing them for information or assassination. Three now, since the new movement has twisted the sheet enough that Grant can see that his assessment about Fitz's lack of clothes was spot on.

He thinks May might be the only person he's ever slept with for any kind of innocuous reason, but even that had been the creature comfort of not wanting to be alone with his memories when Asgardian tech had left them simmering dangerously close to the surface. Sex was the least of what he'd have done to keep from having to relive his childhood again.

"Not as much as you'd think," he replies, rubbing the back of his neck and kicking off his boots. He'll need to clean them up in the morning, but he can't be bothered just yet. "Pretend it's complicated science and you have to dumb it down for the dumb jock."

Now Fitz is frowning at him like his confusion is confusing _Fitz_. Which is fair. Grant doesn't like flashing his failings as a human being in front of people who have to be able to trust him to watch their backs. It erodes that trust when they realize he's just a little off emotionally or mentally. He certainly doesn't ask plainly for explanations to the more confusing behaviors of his teammates. "Generally speaking a naked person in your bed is an overture of sex."

Grant nods. "Right. Okay. So…. Why?"

Blinking, Fitz opens his mouth then shuts it again. He sighs and begins gathering the sheet around him. "This was a bad idea. I'm sorry. I thought- and then Skye said- but I should have listened to Jemma instead and-"

"I didn't say no," Grant says, reaching out to stop the stumbling, jerky movements. He isn't sure what Fitz is actually looking for here, but he is sure that if he lets the other go now, he'll break another link he's got in this hybrid team-family that Coulson's formed. Just a few minutes ago he'd thought he wanted that, but faced with the idea that Fitz will start giving him the same frosty treatment as May, he realizes that he really, really doesn't. "I just… I don't understand what you want here."

There must be something in his voice because Fitz stops trying to make a toga of his sheets and really looks at him. He has this look on his face, the kind he gets in his lab when he's on the verge of a breakthrough but he isn't sure what to do with it. When he finally answers, his words are plain and a little slow. Like he's finally understood that what's obvious to him isn't to Grant. "You're someone that I find attractive, both physically and personally. Sometimes you say and do things that make me think you feel the same way about me. I had what was probably just a little too much to drink and decided to do something about it. Then I had plenty of time to sober up and second guess myself, but I wanted it enough to try anyways."

"You think I have the personality of a robot," Grant replies, not really sure what to do with the rest of it. People find him attractive sexually. He knows that. He's used that. No one likes him as a person. Except maybe Skye who likes everyone as long as they're not trying to kill her.

"I like robots." Then Fitz flushes when his own words register and he smacks his forehead. "I mean, I haven't thought that in ages."

Grant can't help but smile a little. "But you have thought it."

"Obviously," Fitz says, a smile of his own appearing. "But then I got to know you. And I like the Grant Ward that I've gotten to know."

"You don't know as much about me as you think," Grant warns, dropping his hands between his knees and staring at the floor. 

If Fitz likes him on a personal level, then clearly he's managed to delude himself on who and what Grant really is.

A hesitant hand settles on his shoulder. Grant tenses, but Fitz just holds it there until he relaxes again. Then the hand slides down, joined by the other. One hand settles directly over his heart, the fingers splayed out across his pectoral. The other clenches against his ribcage. It's a slow movement from simple touch to full hug and it'd be easy to shift away. He wouldn't even have to hurt Fitz to do it, if he decided to escape the embrace.

He stays still.

It feels strange, sitting there while Fitz presses against his back and holds him. 

"So… confession time," Fitz says, his breath tickling Grant's ear. The words make Grant tense up again, but Fitz doesn't let go or move away. "I may have asked Skye to help me hack into your files. All of them. It's actually kind of creepy how thorough SHIELD really is when it comes to our personnel files."

Grant swallows hard. He's never looked into his own file, but he can imagine what all it has to say about him. The missions he's taken over the years aren't the kinds of things he wants someone like Fitz or Skye to see.

He isn't even sure he likes knowing that Coulson has seen them and a Level 8 field agent has seen plenty of the dark side of SHIELD.

To say nothing of his life before SHIELD.

Lips brush his neck in a butterfly kiss. It shouldn't ease any of the built up tension, shouldn't feel like absolution, but it does, just a little. "It staggers me that you can still be as kind and as compassionate and as brave as you are. That you can still care so much when no one has ever shown you how."

Eyes burning, Grant blinks away the prickle of tears and shakes his head. "I'm not- Fitz, I'm not a good guy, okay? I'm not. Don't… don't fool yourself into thinking that."

"You _are_ a good person, Grant." The words are soft, but their conviction is solid as steel. "And a lot of people have spent a lot of time convincing you otherwise. Let me prove them wrong."

"I'll hurt you." It's what he does, whether he means to or not.

"You won't. And even if you do, sometimes that happens." Fitz's arms tighten around him, the hand over his heart pressing down like he can hold Grant together if he just tries hard enough. "That's a chance everyone takes when they start caring for someone else. Doesn't mean it isn't worth it."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"That's not a bad start, you know. I don't want to hurt you, either." Fitz leans harder against him, inching further over his shoulder until he has a nose full of golden curls. "We can figure out the rest as we go along. If you want to try."

He takes deep breath, breathing in the clean scent of apples and spice and tries to think of what someone normal would do in this situation. Probably make a decision, he thinks, though he isn't sure how they manage it. 

This isn't just accepting May's casual invitation of distraction or the easy affection that Skye offers them all by simple virtue of not fighting her decision to adopt them. It's worlds away from using sex to get what SHIELD needs from a mark and he refuses to even think of a certain Asgardian in the same space as Fitz.

Does he want to try?

It feels like the hardest decision anyone has ever asked Grant to make. Which just proves he isn't the guy Fitz thinks he is. If he agrees to this, he's going to end up with a lot worse than a bruised larynx and some new nightmares. 

He reaches up and hesitates for a moment with his hand hovering just above Fitz's arms. Finally he sighs and presses his hand over Fitz's. "Okay."

It's going to end badly, he knows, but Fitz has more than earned the chance to prove him wrong. 

"Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> I am working on a companion piece to this from Fitz's point of view.


End file.
